My thanks to Li Meng for sharing such beauty of Chinese culture. I am inspired to learn the guzheng myself. The guzheng allows a musician to express in a way not availalbe on most Western instruments. The same can be said of the guqin.
Thanks to GuqinZheng for the info on this piece...that really helps one to understand more about this wonderful performance...This player, Li Meng, is simply outstanding...I do think that she is one of the very very best...
@TheElectricTurtle I am nt sure how much you know about guzheng, but I am playing this piece, and the piece does not say anything about mountain. Shan dan dan is the name of a flower. So the title says red (exaggerating the red) shan dan dan blooming. Which each guzheng piece, their is story behind the title. as you probably know, in the 20th centirey, china was in trouble, then an army came and helped china up. The army's color was red. And everyone liked the army for helping china, so .....
@TheElectricTurtle CONTINUED!! so... when a red soldier came to a town, people would invite them in and comforte them in. The red flower in the title is the red army. The red flower (army) blooming (The army's rise for the chinese). this piece has to show the delicacy of the people and the assertivness of the army:.Hope this helps:)
GuqinZheng To me it seems that if the red army as such is symbolised by the title, then Li Meng's energetic expression is corresponding to the feeling a freedom's army would have on the locals. Therefore this interpretation seems very fitting - the underlying story is present in the performance in this case. Of course this is a question only the player herself can answer, none of us :)
While there isn't much to fault in her technique, other than being a bit rough at times, the arrangement is horrible. It it so forced and contrived. This is supposed to be about wild flowers blooming on a mountain, it should be organic, but it sounds mechanical. I notice that there is an instructional video by Lin Ling in the related videos (林玲-山丹丹開花紅艷艷教學), and I sincerely recommend that her performance which she does after the instruction be contrasted with this one. Hers is much better.
